He could have desired nothing better than its appearance in school-books. One of his pet projects was that all American school-children should be taught how shockingly unjust and cruel Great Britain had been to her colonies; they must learn, he said, to hate her; and while he was in France he prepared a long list of the British outrages which he considered contrary to all the rules of civilized warfare. He intended to have a picture of each one prepared by French artists and sent to America, that the lesson of undying hatred might be burnt into the youthful mind.
In the autumn of 1775 he went with two other commissioners to Washington's army before Boston to arrange for supplies and prepare general plans for the conduct of the war. In the following March he was sent to Canada with Samuel Chase and Charles Carroll, of Maryland, to win over the Canadians to the side of the revolted colonies. Charles Carroll's brother John, a Roman Catholic priest, accompanied them at the request of the members of Congress, who hoped that he would be able to influence the French Canadian clergy.
It was a terrible journey for Franklin, now an old man; for as they advanced north they found the ground covered with snow and the lakes filled with floating ice. They spent five days beating up the Hudson in a little sloop to Albany, and two weeks after they had started they reached Lake George. General Schuyler, who lived near Albany, accompanied them after they had rested at his house, and assisted in obtaining wagons and boats. Franklin was ill with what he afterwards thought was an incipient attack of the gout which his constitution wanted strength to develop completely. At Saratoga he made up his mind that he would never see his home again, and wrote several letters of farewell.
But by the care and assistance of John Carroll, the priest, with whom he contracted a life-long friendship, he was able to press on, and they reached the southern end of Lake George, where they embarked on a large flat-bottomed boat without a cabin, and sailed the whole length of the lake through the floating ice in about a day. Their boat was hauled by oxen across the land to Lake Champlain, and after a delay of five days they embarked again amidst the floating ice. Sailing and rowing, sleeping under a canvas cover at night, and going ashore to cook their meals, they made the upper end of the lake in about four days, and another day in wagons brought them to Montreal.